Tiivistelmä

Pneumonia is an illness, usually caused by bacterial, viral or more rarely fungal organisms. Common symptoms in children and infants include difficult breathing, cough, and wheezing. Diagnosis involves confirmatory chest radiography and laboratory tests. Antibiotics are the preferred choice for treatment and management. Risks factors include low paternal education, low birth weight, lack of breastfeeding. Key strategies for the prevention of childhood pneumonia are community –based case management, adequate nutrition and zinc intake.
Main aim is produce guidelines for these families by producing web pages to be published in Terveysnetti so that they can be able to understand and recognize the disease well. The purpose of my bachelor thesis is to provide information to families with pre-school children about pneumonia.
Literature review was used in analysis of research articles which were obtained from electronic sources in our school library. Main search engine used to retrieve the articles was CINAHL. Searches were limited and compared against each other thus the relevant information was retrieved by selecting meaningful articles and abstracts. Results concluded that pneumonia kills more children than any other illness- more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined resulting to over two million deaths each year.
In conclusion, increased understanding about etiology and pathophysiology of the disease should guide new approaches to tackle the immense global problem of child deaths from pneumonia, the most effective intervention to reduce pneumonia related deaths would be to improve access to early care where simple, appropriate interventions are provided, including referral where necessary.